These Weird Internet Tubes Are At It Again: Chautauqua

Once again a weird confluence of coincidences (or are they?) in these internet tubes has allowed me to discover new things, opened up a new concept, and smile in wonder at how seemingly disparate events can come together in a matter of days from the most unusual and unlikely of places.

They are amazing things, these internet tubes.

It was only two weeks ago that I came across the book Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work by Matthew B. Crawford. I wrote about it in the context of a recent riding experience we had, where all those shop classes came in handy (along with a bit of biker ingenuity and dumbass luck). That this hit home with some people was evident in the comments. One commentor mentioned how much influence another book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values (Robert Pirsig, 1974) had on him.

This comment quickened my heart, as I knew I had a dog-eared copy of Zen somewhere. I found it, and started reading it (again).

Reading on the train, it all came back to me why I loved it so. There was one point where I made a mental note to myself to look something up because I had never heard the word before. It was stuck like a little post-it in the back of my mind. On page seven, Robert Pirsig writes:

What is in mind is a sort of Chautauqua --- that’s the only name I can think of for it --- like the traveling, tent-show Chatauquas that used to move across American, this American, the one that we are now in, an old-time series of popular talks intended to edify and entertain, improve the mind and bring culture and enlightenment to the ears and thoughts of the hearer. The Chautauquas were pushed aside by faster-paced radio, moves and TV, and it seems to me the change was not entirely an improvement. Perhaps because of these changes the stream of national consciousness moves fster now, and is broader, but it seems to run less deep.

I had never heard of Chautauqua, but in the mind-numbing experience of reading on the train I kind of glossed over the term and just kept reading.

This is where it gets weird.

Just today, Mike Mahaffie wrote about the Chautauqua Tent Show in Lewes. Good Lord, I think I belong in Lower, Slower Delaware sometimes because it is an event like this that is right up my alley. It is one of those things that just makes you smile and that little sticky-note in the back of my mind lit up.

It was what Robert Pirsig was talking about. About how his journey and the story he wanted to tell was like a Chautauqua.

So, all of these random events on the internet tubes kind of came together, and isn’t it funny that it ended up in Delaware. There is no rhyme nor reason (or is there?).

It kind of inspires one to make a Chautauqua of one’s own.

I believe I will.